Shepard's Return
by FredTheAlmighty
Summary: All of Mass Effect 2 - Courtney Shepard, from the Galaxy's Strongest Biotic. I'm writing this the way I see Mass Effect 2. Somewhat canon, follows the storyline pretty closely, just changing things to fit better. Shepard is the strongest biotic in the galaxy, due to traumatic events before birth. Femshep/Garrus. Rated T for now, might eventually change to M because harsh language.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1 - Here we go again -

_Right. So I'm going to try this again. Imagine these stories as a learning experience for me. My first intention when I started writing fanfiction was more for me than anyone else. I loved reading the stories but I needed **more**. And more was writing my own story. Turns out it's way harder than I thought, at least for me. I can't stay focused on one game for a long time, because my mind is always racing with ideas. I'm no writer, but I need a way to...vent? Express myself? Not sure of the term. So...3rd time's the charm? I guess we'll find out._

**TO CLARIFY:**

**For New Readers: I've written two stories on Courtney Shepard before this one. I stopped writing both (not even) halfway through because I couldn't focus on one area too long.**

**For old readers: Nikki is gone. Removed from the story. Garrus and Shepard fucked. This is Mass Effect 2.**

**also: lots of highlighting and italicizing. might have messed some up. my bad.**

* * *

"Operative Lawson, I trust everything is well?"

She turned to the image, "Yes. We have successfully recovered the body and put it into cryo for preparation."

"Good. You have read over her files, yes?" he said, taking a drag on his cigarette.

"Briefly, before Alchera. I am in the process of extensively studying them now." she stated.

"Very well. Do not let me down, Miranda." the connection cut off.

She sat down on her cot and reached for a data pad. She picked up the public information data.

**Lieutenant Commander Courtney Shepard**

**Known for saving the Citadel from the Rogue Spectre, Saren, Liberation of Eden Prime, Mindoir, and Elysium.**

_**- Born: Mindoir, 2154, to Kyle and Lisa Shepard.**_

_**-Died: (UNAVAILABLE, 2183, CAUSE: UNKNOWN)**_

_**-Captain Kyle Shepard: MIA**_

_**-Lisa Shepard: Deceased (2170:Mindoir)**_

**_Not much is known of Commander Shepard. Her profile is heavily classified. It is known that she went through a traumatic childhood on Mindoir and shortly joined the Alliance afterword. After multiple years, she went to Elysium for a classified assignment and fought in the Skyllian Blitz, leading the resistance to fight off the batarians. This was her breaking point, and she eventually snapped 2 years later, going on a killing spree on the citadel, killing 12 batarians, and wounding 6 more. She disappeared after this, and was labeled an insane criminal. Nobody knows what happened until 2183, when she reappeared for duty on tracking down the Rogue spectre, Saren. She died later the same year at age 29. Her ship was attacked and destroyed at an unknown location by an unknown enemy._**

**_Her abilities are classified as well, but through public observation it is clear she is extremely deadly. She has proven many times over to be an immensely strong biotic, for unknown reasons. Her biotics are also green, unlike the usual blue. She is also extremely capable in hand to hand combat, it is unknown where she learned her abilities, but is above any average soldier. She also has a preference for blades, as seen when she Liberated Eden Prime by colonists, where she fought off swarms of geth with a single blade. No interviews have been taken with Commander Shepard, as she always declined._**

She had read that countless times now, but she wanted it all committed to memory. She picked up the data pad put together by the Illusive Man.

_**Commander Shepard:**_

_**-Strongest known biotic in the Galaxy. Capable of moving ships. This is due to an accident in the Prothean ruins on Mars, where Shepard's mother was exposed to experimental Prothean eezo while Shepard was in the womb.**_

_**-Severe mental trauma due to Mindoir and Elysium. Can be unpredictable. May snap around batarians.**_

_**-Skilled in all blades. Carries at least a dozen with her. Prefers not to use firearms, but still carries pistols.**_

_**-Skilled in Stealth. Managed to evade even the Shadow Broker for 5 years. Unknown where she went. Possibly worked as an assassin? Not seen very often by agents when visiting the citadel, keeps herself very well hidden.**_

_**-Highly trained in Close Quarters combat. Reports say she managed to keep up with Saren when he was upgraded with reaper technology.**_

_**-Concepted some sort of armor or suit. Unable to decode very much of the schematics, they appear to be written in Prothean. Something very big. The file size is enormous.**_

Miranda scrolled through the pictures of Shepard. With each picture, her hair changed, whether it be in length, color, or style. Miranda looked to the most recent one. On her neck she sported some sort of tattoo, it appeared to come up from above her breasts and go up to twirl around her neck. Her hair was certainly different. It was kept mostly on one side, hanging to the bottom of her neck, and the other side was shaved. One thing Miranda quickly noticed was the eyes, in each picture they gave off a bright green glow.

She picked up another datapad - Mission and News reports of her time fighting Saren. She had already read the ones for Eden Prime, they were written by Kaiden Alenko. She picked up the ones from Feros, written by the Commander herself.

_"Heres your report that you wanted so terribly bad, Councilors._

_-Killed some geth._

_-Met colonists._

_-Saved colonists._

_-Met more colonists._

_-Killed more geth._

_-Met some Krogan._

_-Killed some Krogan._

_-Returned and saved the colonists again._

_-Saw a giant ass plant._

_-Killed said plant._

_-Received mind rape from an Asari_

_-Shepard."_

Were all the reports this...blunt? She picked up the report from Therum.

_"-Killed Geth._

_-Killed more geth._

_-Found Asari._

_-Saved Asari._

_-Met Krogan._

_-Taunted Krogan_

_-Killed Krogan."_

Apparently So. She picked up the Noveria report.

_"I landed, punched some people, killed some people, arrested even stupider people, and then got to Peak 15. We ran into some Rachni, and fought them off. I worked on getting the trams operational and then ran into a group of people stranded by the Rachni. I found my way to Matriarch Benezia and together we took her down. I killed the Rachni queen and we left."_

Then Virmire, though this was Written by Garrus Vakarian.

_"Shepard is out of action right now, so I'm the best you've got. I need to keep this quick. We landed and met up with the Salarians. They were expecting a fleet. We found Saren's base of operations and he was breeding an army of Krogan with the genophage cure he made. We decided to split into two teams, a distraction team and an Infiltration team. The infiltration team (Shepard, Urdnot Wrex, and I) snuck in and disabled the AA cannons so the Normandy could land and plant a nuke. We found a Prothean Beacon on the way and Shepard used it. Then we spoke with Saren's ship. Or so we thought. It was a Reaper. Again, A reaper. Shepard will explain more later. We planted the nuke and Shepard had to make a choice - Kaiden Alenko or Ashley Williams. She chose Ashley._

_ Saren then showed up and Shepard fought him alone. He isn't organic anymore. She stabbed him in the heart, among other places, and he was unaffected. He got the upper hand and almost threw her off the base, but she resorted to cutting her arm off to escape. She cut him with her sword and from where I was it looked like she nearly cut him in half, but he walked away and escaped. I picked her up and carried her to the Normandy and she had passed out, she still is. There was a lot of blood. We don't know if she's going to make it. The nuke detonated and Kaiden Alenko died. We are going to the Citadel now."_

Miranda knew the rest, along with everyone else. The council got fleets ready, Shepard stole the Normandy and went to Ilos. Nobody except Shepard, Garrus Vakarian, and Tali'Zorah know what happened there. Then they somehow got to the Citadel, Sovereign showed up, and Shepard saved everyone, including the council. And then Shepard died.

She set down the datapad and rested her head on the cot, shutting her eyes.

* * *

He walked into the room. It wasn't great, but it was certainly not bad. About as big as _her_ quarters. The walls were gray, with a window in on one of them. It let in that deep red that Omega gave off. He walked through and set his Sniper on his desk. He took off his helmet and some of his extra armor, sitting down on his bed. It had already been two months. He still felt empty, without a purpose.

He had tried to get by on the citadel, continue what she left him with. He warned people of the Reapers, raised a commotion, but nobody listened. It even seemed his comrades had started to doubt it. Ashley wasn't any help at all.

"What if the council is right, Garrus? What if Sovereign was a geth creation?" she had said to him.

She was a fool. Tali did all she could, but that wasn't much. She had to return the fleet, but she would preach of the reapers to them, for whatever good that would do.

Wrex probably did the most out of all of them. He and Garrus got along somewhat better than he thought they would. He would even go so far as to consider Wrex a friend. He returned to Tuchanka to reunite the Krogan, and hopefully prepare for the reapers.

None of them knew what happened to Liara. After the funeral, she disappeared. Her and Garrus never really spoke on the Normandy. Joker had disappeared with Anderson after the funeral. Nobody saw him since.

He looked to his feet. What was he doing? He wasn't doing anything. But he would, he told himself that. The day the reapers came, he would be there, fighting. But now? He was a vigilante. Trying to do as much good as he can without regulations to get in his way. He had put together a small team so far. Sidonis was the first person he met. They both wanted to purge Omega of crime. Sidonis was his medic, and unofficially his second-in-command. Saar, his tech-expert, was a Batarian. He almost killed him when they first met. Shepard's story of what the batarians did to her was horrible. He learned to despise them. But he let this one past, given that you can't condemn an entire race as criminals. But most of them certainly were.

Then there was Jadranth, his explosive expert. A salarian. Garrus found him as a prisoner of the Blue Suns. Garrus had cleared the hideout alone, and found Jadranth tied up. Garrus untied him and sent him on his way, but a few weeks later he reappeared, asking to join.

He let out a sigh as he climbed into his bed. It felt new to him everytime he did it. He had gotten so used to the Normandy. He was only there for a year. She was only there for a year. Why couldn't he let go?

* * *

Life. Living. Alive. She wasn't any of those. Right? Wasn't she? Was this what death felt like? Blackness? No, there was a smell. It smelled like a hospital. There were sounds too, machinery. Her back was cold, she was laying on on top of something metal. But she was dead. Wasn't she? No. She opened her eyes. She was _**alive.**_

* * *

**AN:**

**So to just add a few more things here, I do these stories [mostly] off the top of my head. I think of an idea when I'm at school or about to sleep, write that, and then pull the rest out of nowhere. Maybe thats why I can't stay focused on one thing at a time. Don't know.**

**As for you people who have been waiting for an update, I'm sorry. I tried to write and nothing came. The "magic" wasn't there. Now...it's kinda there. Kinda. I have a ton of ideas on my little note thing on my phone, but ideas don't make a story. I never forgot the story though. Every day I would add another cool idea. I'd say my best idea is the plotline for post Mass Effect 3. Seriously, it's a million dollar idea. But that's a LOONGG ways away from now.**

**For now though, I'm going to try and get a chapter out at least once a month. I know thats a huge jump up from last time, but as I said, the "magic" still isn't fully there. I've only got 3 more full chapters done after this one, so hopefully I can crank something out before those three get posted.**

**Cheers.**


	2. Chapter 2

She leaned up and looked around. A metal room. A single cot in the middle, and a glass window on the far end, with a door next to it. With a women looking right at her. Shepard looked at her hands. She felt them, felt her neck, felt her legs. No scars. No tattoos. Everything was gone. She lifted up her shirt and looked to her stomach. Nothing. It was all gone. She felt her hair, it was shorter. She had bangs. She plucked out a few of the hairs and looked at them. Blonde again.

"Shepard. Welcome back to the land of the living," the speaker announced. Shepard twirled the hair in her fingers, then looked to the window. The women was gone, but the door opened. Shepard just stared at her.

"I'm Miranda. Miranda Lawson. Get up." she said, extending her arm to remove some straps.

Shepard stared down at the clasps on her feet, waiting for them to release. They clicked open, and she struck her foot into the woman's throat right away. She followed it with the other foot to the sternum, pushing her backwards and into the wall. Shepard rolled off the side of the bed and ran towards the women, who had recovered and began to pull out her pistol. Shepard met her at the same time her pistol was raised. She pushed the pistol down with one hand, and grabbed the throat with her other. She pulled and ducked as she let go of her throat, letting the momentum carry the women over her and to the floor. Shepard picked up the gun and straddled the women, pushing the gun to her temple.

"Tell me what's going on before I blow your brains out."

"You died. I brought you back. Now you're here. Put the gun down."

Shepard stared at her for a while, chills running through her body.

"How long?" she asked.

"Two years."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why bring me back?"

"When you're ship was attacked, you died. A few engineers and ship hands died as well. You were attacked by the collectors, do you know what those are?"

Shepard sighed, "Yea. Yea I do. What are they doing that validates bringing me back?" She stood up and dropped the pistol, leaning onto the bed.

"Colonies are disappearing, though, it's only humans of colonies. Not just a few, but hundreds of thousands of humans are gone. They disappear without a trace, as if they vanished into thin air. This only started happening after you killed Sovereign." The women said, standing up and grabbing the pistol.

"So why me? Isn't the Alliance doing anything?"

"No. They haven't done anything. They don't even think the collectors exist."

Shepard let out a grin. "That sounds so like them."

Miranda laughed. "It certainly does. Come on, I'll explain everything."

* * *

"Alright, from the beginning. You died, along with Charles Pressley, and other people on the Normandy. Your ground crew all survived. The Citadel is being rebuilt. The council is denying that the Reapers are real, they insist that Sovereign is a geth creation." Miranda said, typing away at a computer.

"Of fucking course. Why would the council believe something I said? "Shepard said it! She's insane! It's not true!" Fuck them." she said, rubbing her eyes.

"That's spot on. They're really milking the insane portion of it. As for your ground crew, they all survived. Liara T'soni left and went to Illium I believe. Sources say she's working with the Shadow broker."

"Liara? Working with the Shadow Broker? Yea right. She's just a kid."

"Urdnot Wrex went back to Tuchanka after your funeral. He's trying to reunite the Krogan."

Shepard let out a smile, "Good. Hopefully the Krogan can get a spot in the galaxy sometime."

"Right. Might be awhile until that happens." Miranda said with a grin.

"Probably."

"Ashley Williams is still with the Alliance. We don't know what she's doing, her file is well hidden. Tali'Zorah returned to the fleet to finish her pilgrimage. She's apparently got a team of her own now."

"Tali? Leading a team? I'll see it when I believe it. I love the girl, but she was no leader. What about Garrus Vakarian?"

Miranda let out a chuckle, "Garrus Vakarian stayed on the Citadel for a while. Tried to show people that the Reapers really exist. After a few weeks he just left. Don't know where he is."

"Yea. Yea okay. What about my father?"

"Missing in action. Nobody knows where he is. At least, that's the official story. Our agents in the Alliance think it might be a cover up for something. Too classified to investigate further."

"Hm. Alright. Now what?" Shepard said, standing up.

Miranda turned around, handing a datapad to Shepard, "You're new body. It's a lot different than before."

"New? What happened to my normal body?"

"Incinerated, Frozen, Crushed, take your pick. The only thing that's in you right now from your old body is your brain and spine. Both of which are heavily reliant of Cybernetics. You're entire body is lined with cybernetic implants to keep you running."

"To keep me running. That's an odd feeling."

"I imagine it is. As for capabilities, you're heavily upgraded. Run faster, jump higher, stronger, et cetera. You'll heal a lot faster than before as well. And we also installed a data receiver and transmitter into one of your optic nerves."

"What purpose does that serve?"

"The optic nerve sends the data produced in the retina to the brain, so you can see. We put a tiny chip in there to pick up that data while it's on its way to the brain. It transmits it to your omni tool."

"So I could...send what I'm seeing to someone?"

"Precisely."

"Impressive. Couldn't someone hack into that signal though?"

"No. It sends the data in quantum bits, through a quantum entanglement communicator. When one particle..." Miranda began, only to be cut off.

"Stop, don't even want to know. What else did you upgrade?" Shepard cut in.

"Suit yourself. We upgraded your biotics as well."

"Of course. As if moving a ship wasn't enough."

"You're complaining?" Miranda asked with a grin.

Shepard looked at her, "Nope."

"Good. Now, look at your palms." Miranda pointed to her hands.

Shepard looked to her palms, "Yea? No tattoos."

"Oh yes, that too. All of your tattoos are gone because all your skin from before is gone. Simple as that. Now, look at your palm. See that?" she pointed to the center of her palm.

"Yea...what is it?" It looked like a small disc under her skin.

"Biotic node. For concentrated control."

"So?"

"Whips. Biotic whips."

Shepard grinned. "That's badass. Why can't I feel my biotics?"

"Because, you just woke up. You're going to need a few weeks of training at this facility to get back to peak condition. You're out of shape."

"Alright. So what's the plan? I train here then what? You kick me out the door and I figure out how to stop the collectors?"

Miranda laughed, "No. My boss will explain. Come on."

"You're boss? Oh fuck I totally forgot about that. Who are you? As a group?" She got up and followed to the door.

"Cerberus. We're going to talk to the Illusive Man."

Shepard stopped in her tracks, then began to back up, "Cerberus? The terrorist organization? That better be a joke."

Miranda turned, "No, It's not. We're focused on the advancement of humanity in the galactic civilization. You're the prime example of what humanity is. We're not terrorists, despite questionable practices. All of them served a purpose. Now come on."

"So what happens if I leave? I'm assuming you put a kill switch in my head?"

"No, actually. Though when I learned I was resurrecting the Reaper killing assassin, the thought ran through my mind more than once."

"Assassin? Where the hell did you get that?"

"When you disappeared for five years?"

Shepard grinned, "Hm. Assassin. Sure, Let's go with that," She let her guard down and walked to the door.

"Then what happened?"

"Nothing. Just being an assassin. What's this?"

"Hello Shepard, Lawson." a voice said, a face soon appearing to match it.

"Shepard, this is the Illusive man." Miranda said, walking in behind Shepard.

"That will be all, Mrs. Lawson," he said.

* * *

Authors note:

Not really feeling this anymore. I've learned that I'm just burnt out on Mass Effect. Which is probably good, because I put more time into those games than anyone ever should even think about. I'll come back to it eventually, but after the next 2 chapters are posted, I'll drop this story for a while.

HOWEVER:

I'm also starting a new story, which will be called Path of Blood. It's going to be an Elder Scrolls/Skyrim fanfic, so if you're a fan of those, keep an eye out.

Cheers.


End file.
